Amazon 10-inch iPad 2 Competitor To Come In 2012

The first Amazon tablet will be a 7-inch model according to a news report that has emanated from Taiwan and is likely to be shipped in October and go on sale in the subsequent months.

According to Yenting Chen & Joseph Tsai from Digitimes, mass production of the 10.1-inch version of the Amazon tablet PC will start in the first quarter of 2012, with Foxconn being the rumoured partner - as with Apple's iPad 2 - to deliver the product.

The 7-inch version, which we assume will be a scaled down version of the 10-inch tablet and will be manufactured by Quanta computer, should ship within a few weeks which could mean that Amazon will start taking preorders for the device as early as the end of September.

Digitimes also reports that Foxconn electronics will also have produced all the estimated 18 million Kindle e-book readers shipped by Amazon this year.

We reported recently how the recent exit of the HP TouchPad might have given Amazon the final proof that there is indeed a market for an affordable tablet.

In addition, at least one analyst believes that Amazon will sell up to five million tablets in the fourth quarter alone if it manages to sell its tablet for under $300.